Couching Potato

I’m looking ahead to a long hot summer here in Tucson; save for a week in July in Wisconsin, I’m here for the next 3 months of tedious non-stop heat.

So, given that I’ll be spending a lot of time indoors (sewing, what else) I ordered MLB Extra Innings from Direct TV, which means I can watch an insane amount of baseball while I sew. I really have a hard time just sitting down and watching TV; I generally need to be doing a task with the TV on. Only the Daily Show, the Colbert Report, a handful of great TV shows (The Wire, Rescue Me, Battlestar Gallactica, Big Love, Dead Like Me) and a few brilliant movies are an exception to this no-couch-potato-rule in my home.

Yesterday I was able to watch a Red Sox/Oakland from Fenway and a Giant’s/Rockies game. This is what I got done, shut in against the heat with the TV on and my pedal to the….sewing machine:

Everything is couched with yarn or silk cord. For a nice example of good couching technique check out this nice fiber-arts blog here.

This is a close up; I’m leaving some of the white from the glue-resist technique, I think it’s a nice effect, there’s not too much of it:

I just started peeling the stabilizer off the back; you can see all the knots I’ve tied!

Tomorrow night I’ll start quilting it; then I’ll cut it around the prickly-pear shaped edges, zig-zag it down around the edges, and finally put yarn or cord down over the zig-zag stitch for a different and unconventional binding.